A Brief Holiday
by DigitalTart
Summary: This afternoon, Archadia is just going to have to make do without an emperor. Larsa x Penelo awkward teenage flirting, Vaan, Penelo, Larsa gen. friendship fic
1. Chapter 1

I have read very many excellent tragedies of varying lengths concerning Larsa Solidor. I imagine his life was a short and brutal story of one loss after another: his father, his mentor, his brother, his guardian, his innocence, and his empire. However, that is not what this fic is about. In this fic, Larsa is going to HAVE SOME FUN FOR ONCE GODS DAMMIT.

Larsa x Penelo awkward teenage flirting, very brief mention of Balthier x Ashe (not story focus).

* * *

_Prologue to a Certain Amount of Mischief_

The Imperial Guardsman posted to the Emperor's guestroom in the Royal Palace of Rabanstre placed the letter carefully on the table and glanced over at his partner. "Hizzoner'll have us filleted for this, you realize."

"That he will," the other replied, nodding in unhappy agreement.

"Right," said the first, and turned again to the open window to stand in silence. "You ever seen his Excellency grinning like that?" he said finally.

"Never in my life."

The code of the knights of Archadia was explicit in its decree that no man of the blade should allow his companions to face deadly peril alone. The task of reporting this…incident was not quite _deadly_ peril, since Emperor Larsa had made clear his distaste for summary execution, but it was at the least going to be really, really unpleasant. The unfortunate pair therefore clanked down the hallway together to Zargabaath's chambers, where they found him, as well as Judge Gabranth, in conference over tiny cups of tongue-searingly strong Dalmascan coffee and precarious piles of state documents. Their Honors Judge Zargaabath and Judge Gabranth were both just men, which bode well for the two soldiers walking out of the room with all limbs intact—the new Gabranth was, at any rate. The general consensus among the Guard was that a piece of the _Bahamut_ had fallen on his head during the evacuation, though a few old hands swore by the theory he'd been replaced by his highly implausible rumor of a twin brother. The Emperor would neither formally confirm nor deny anything, and regardless of cause, most agreed the change was for the better.

The elder Judge looked up at the pair of interruptions somewhat crossly, and the younger looked, if anything, slightly and inexplicably amused. The letter was handed over (along with a halting explanation of its presence), which read as follows:

_To whom it may concern,_

_We have this day abducted Emperor Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, beloved ruler of Archadia and all its territories, and friend to the sovereign nation of Dalmasca. He will be returned intact by sundown if our demands are met:_

_1) Forgive all fines incurred at the Eastgate public lending library by one Migelo of Migelo's Sundries._

_2) Deliver a case of 698 Archades red to aforementioned shopfront, compliments of Sir Ratsbane and his lovely assistant _(this part had been scratched out, and a new line written above it in a neater hand) _compliments of the Sunsting Dancer and __he__r assistant, who obviously thinks too much of himself._

_3) Tell Zargabaath this was not Larsa's idea, really._

_--The Dread Pirates of the Golden Hair_

_Or even if they're not._

_P.S. He's probably going to get kind of grubby. You'll want to make sure he's washed before the treaty signing._

After reading it over three times in disbelief, Judge Zargabaath crumpled up the slip of rough paper in one armored fist and stood with the creak and clatter of many pounds of mithril alloy. "You. Let them. Take him," he said, low and deadly, managing to loom over the younger guardsman though he was a good two inches shorter when without his helmet.

"It was orders, Your Honor!" his partner protested in meager defense. "His exact words were, ah, 'I am loathe to sacrifice the luncheon with so many august Dalmascan diplomats, but have little choice. Do not hinder them, that one has a bowgun and I believe she can use it.' Then he climbed onto the hovercycle behind the blonde man with all the daggers and shot out the window, sir."

"We'll organize search parties at once, you honor. Should we involve the native police force, or—"

"No," Judge Gabranth said mildly, speaking up for the first time. Zargabaath stiffened but said nothing. That one has little taste for plots. Unusual, but probably innocuous. Zargabaath didn't challenge it.

The two hapless soldier exchanged glances. "Sir?"

"If he does not wish to be found, he will not be found. I would think you have learned that lesson well enough. Tell her Majesty's seneschal the Emperor is ill with the heat and will not be appearing until the evening."

Judge Zargabaath favored them with a parting glower. "Now remove yourselves from my sight, before your incompetence overwhelms my desire to keep true to the gentler ideals of our young Emperor." The two guardsmen saluted in a heady mixture of relief and slack-jawed confusion, retaining enough of their dignity not to run, but only just.

Once they had fled to the corridor, Basch finally allowed himself the shadow of a smile. "You needn't fear for his safety in their hands. I can personally guarantee it."

"You _knew_."

"It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Let him be a boy for today," he said, and subtle curl of lip disappeared again, subsumed by the realities facing his royal charge. "He's had precious little time as one."

"The Solidor house did as it must to survive. Youth does not protect from intrigue; if Larsa had been given the same liberties as your princess, he would not be breathing now."

"You must see that he sleeps little and eats less. A knife in the dark or poison in his supper wine are not the assaults against his health I fear most."

The other judged sighed low in his throat and settled again into his seat. "He doesn't have the stomach for empire, and Vayne knew it, may his traitor's bones rot. He did such copious and unpardonable wrong against his own kin, but Larsa…at least he sought to protect that one from the very future in which we have now found ourselves."

"What little good that did."

"And I had thought there was no pity left me," Zargabaath said, swirling the gritty dregs round in his cup. "Ruling Archadia will tear Larsa's life out piece by piece, until there is nothing left but a shade in the Imperial violets, haunting the halls in a crown that bites heavy into a brow too bowed to carry it."

"You mistake my words, Zargabaath. I am concerned for him, yes, but your emperor, _our_ emperor, is far from lost," Basch replied. "I believe Larsa is more resilient than you guess, and he has true friends in many places, high and low, a gift bestowed upon very few who sit enthroned."

"It seems I did—pray forgive the rambling of an old man. I fear I see nothing but the same slow decline for the young that rises up to meet me," he said, absently flexing the fingers of his left hand inside their metal shells, which had only a fraction of the strength they once did.

"You may be my elder, but you're hardly a dotard yet," Basch protested, shaking his head, and replaced his helmet with a metallic click. "This is a hopeful day—we will have seen the last of that vile nethicite, and that must count for something. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe Queen Ashelia will require at least some Archadian representation at a diplomatic luncheon put on in our honor, whether the attendant can eat it or not."


	2. Chapter 2

Meanwhile, on the roof of a wholly unremarkable flat in a wholly unremarkable section of town, that morning's abductee was considering how to do the least damage to the yards of violet silk he wore while crawling through Vaan and Penelo's open window. This was why Larsa hated state robes with such a passion. You couldn't do anything interesting in them (because the Emperor was supposed to leave the execution of what _he_ considered interesting things to lesser men). "Tch. To hell with it. If you would hold this for a moment, Vaan?" he said, lifting the heavy golden crown from his head and handing it over. He massaged the red dents it left in his temples with relief, then pulled off the cloak, the ruff, the sash, and the underrobe, and now, considerably more mobile, swung his legs over the window frame and into their apartment. Vaan and Penelo followed, grinning silently, their arms heaped with silk and lace and leather. He noticed with a tickle of amusement that the crown had migrated from the grip of Vaan's right hand to Penelo's head, tipped slightly askance over her pale hair. He turned back to her and righted it, bowed low, and was rewarded with a rosy blush that settled into Penelo's cheeks.

"You want this back now?" she asked, reaching up to remove it.

"Not really. It suits you," he said, only mostly in jest.

"You are so full of it, Larsa," Vaan said cheerfully from the low table in the center of the living room, which he was dusting with the end the of his belt sash. "You can put all that stuff here, Penelo, it's clean now. Clean_er_."

A key rattled in the lock of their front door, and Larsa froze. He only resumed breathing when the two Dalmascans continued unperturbed with the tasks each had busied themselves with. An individual to be trusted, it seems, though the fewer knew he was here the better. "I was out back when I heard the bike and WOW that's really the him?" said the boy who slipped through the door and closed it hastily behind him.

"Hi, Kytes, And yeah, that's him," said Vaan over his shoulder, who was wandering in the direction of the kitchen.

"I thought you were making that part up. No waaaaaaaaaaay. He's my age. This is incredible! This is insane! The Emperor of Archadia is standing in my living room!" he gibbered. The boy's clothes were poor—filthy, rank, and patched—but the body inside them was well fed and tanned. Larsa greeted him politely but refrained from asking what he'd been doing, curious though he was. He was not well-versed in the etiquette of thieves, but sensed such a question would likely breach it. And possibly that he'd be better off not knowing.

"Kytes, stop badgering him," admonished Penelo, grasping him firmly by the shoulders and orienting him in the direction of the hallway. "Make yourself useful and find some clothes of yours he can borrow for today—and change yours. And maybe burn them afterward. You smell like a sewer rat."

"Your highness!" he said, and turned about to slap his fist over his heart in a sloppy salute. Larsa smiled. The Archadian occupation had ended three years ago, and if the pain of defeat has eased enough that his country was the target of gentle mockery rather than hissed curses, well, reconciliation was progressing as well as he had hoped. It certainly helped that Queen Ashelia was his friend as well as his ally; it had been drilled into him from very young that the two were not always, nor even often, synonymous.

"I think this is going onto the pile now," announced Penelo, and removed the circlet. Larsa settled down onto one of the cushions on the floor while Penelo made a show of tidying up the stray orange peels and tea mugs, apologizing repeatedly and at length for the slop and clutter two teenage boys left around a place, and she wasn't their maid, but you know.

Kytes soon returned in clothes more fitting for a merchant's son than a beggar, with more held in his arms. "The pants might be kinda short. Sorry," he mumbled, and deposited them beside the imperial finery before disappearing into the kitchen. Larsa could hear him squealing excitedly at Vaan over something but couldn't make out the words. He rose and stripped down to the last remnants of his state robes while Penelo looked politely away to reshelve a few books that didn't need reshelving. He closed his eyes for a moment to luxuriate in the cool breeze wafting through the window. If this was desert winter, he did not ever care to see what summer was like. The rainclouds overhead hadn't yet release the afternoon downpour, and the air was so thick with moisture he imagined it was practically drinkable.

When he opened his eyes, he found Penelo was staring at him over her shoulder. She flushed twice as red as she did the first time. He, in turn, quickly grabbed the sleeveless tunic and pulled it over his head before she noticed his face go the same shade as hers.

"You're a stick, Larsa!" Vaan exclaimed, returning to the living room with Kytes and four glasses of cool herbal tea pinched in his fingers—and also impeccable timing. Penelo relieved him of two glasses, still somewhat pink. Vaan didn't seem to notice. "Is the Archadian treasury so broke they can't afford to feed you or something?"

Larsa seized on this new topic of conversation with relief, unflattering as it was. "I suppose I forget to eat, sometimes. Much requires my attention," he said, as he did up the last button on the short pants and then gratefully accepted the glass Penelo offered him from her spot on the cushions that lined the table.

"If it looks like you could armwrestle Penelo and she'd win, that's bad, okay?" said Vaan.

"Yes, mother," said Larsa, laughing.

"First order of business ought to be lunch," said Penelo, slightly forced. "I'm starved. Usual spot in the south end, Vaan?"

"Sounds good."

Larsa cleared his throat politely. "I must point out at this juncture that I haven't any gil. Your appearance in my suite was rather…abrupt."

"But you're one of the richest guys in Ivalice." Vaan said, perplexed.

"The emperor doesn't nip down to the tea shop for a cup and some biscuits, stupid. Honestly," said Penelo.

"If only he could, Archadia would be a far more pleasant place, which is neither here nor there. However…" he said, and paused to pull the posts out of his ears and hand them to Penelo. "these are Mosphoran pale sapphires. That should be compensation enough."

"If you plan on _buying the shop. _Larsa, I can't take these," she protested, eyes wide.

"I could," said Vaan. She glared at him. "What? The _Harsh Dawn_ could use a paint job."

Larsa shook his head and lifted her hand to drop them in, curling her fingers around the exquisite stones. "A gift. They will not be missed, I assure you."

"I...okay. Sure," she stammered. They were two carats each and the rare, delicate apricot hue so prized by discerning jewelers, and were probably worth _more_ than whatever hole-in-the-wall they planned to take him to.

Vaan drained his glass and set it down. "And so we're off. And Kytes?" he said to the boy, who had spent the entirety of the conservation eying the rich robes in hungry silence, "If I find so much as gold thread or glass bead missing when we get back…" he said, drawing his finger slowly across his throat from ear to ear, "you'll get it."

---

Larsa let Vaan and Penelo provide the majority of the chatter as they walked (something they were quite happy to do), casting in a few words here and there. He had never _seen_ Rabanastre before, not really. He knew it from the air, and the grounds of the palace complex, but that was all. It was old, older by far than what was now known as the city of Archades. Once the two capitals had been very much alike in character, but decades ago his great-grandfather had ordered the old city abandoned in the name of progress, and the once-luxurious mansions gradually filled in with weeds and hungry migrants from the countryside. Archades was built anew with a skeleton of towering steel and the hum of air cabs overhead. In Rabanastre everyone walked, and every stone was lovingly adorned with carvings and mosaics, chipped and scarred yet still beautiful. No wonder they had fought so hard for every inch of this ground. It was weathered yet strong, a matriarch's hands cradling generation after generation that was born and died within her walls. As Larsa dragged his bare fingers over the sunwarmed stone,he was suffused with a sensation of slow, deep peace.

It was so pleasantly distracting he nearly bumped into Vaan, who had stopped in front of a narrow ironwork door that had bled rust all over the cobblestones. He jiggled the door handle, leaned on it, cursed, and finally kicked it hard with the toe of his reinforced boots, which loosed the rusty hinges with a horrible screech. "Monsoon season," he said by way of apology for Larsa's wince. "Everything is either rusty or moldy. If you're really unlucky, it's both."

They descended the stairs revealed behind the opened door, which had piles of unsavory thing mounded in the corners Larsa tried not to think too hard about, and, in accordance with the unwritten rule all cities held in common about dank stairwells, smelled faintly of piss. The dim alley at the bottom, Larsa was unenthused to discover, smelled of even worse things.

"What a delightful aroma," he, observed, wrinkling his nose.

"It's kind of a tradeoff," Penelo said, shrugging. "Lowtown is a lot cooler because the waterways are flowing right below us, but…the waterways are flowing right below us. You get used to it."

"The respite from the heat is welcome, nevertheless, could we eat topside?"


	3. Chapter 3

Larsa was somewhat apprehensive about the quality of the food in a place like this, but the lunch counter his friends led him to was surprisingly clean and mostly importantly, ragingly busy. Vaan had a quick word with a day laborer near the head of the line, some gil changed hands, and very soon they had lunch. It turned out to be crunchy golden fried stuff, tangy creamy stuff, and fresh leafy garden stuff that Larsa had no names for wrapped first in a round of brown flatbread and then in a sheet of yesterday's newspaper. They took it back up the stairs to a sparsely peopled square, shaded by a few large date palms, and sat down beneath them. Eating Rabanastran street food without dripping it down your shirt was something of an art, in which Penelo carefully instructed him and Vaan pretty much ignored, not having a shirt on. His manners really were atrocious, and had not improved at all over the last couple of years. Larsa thought that was a large part of his charm.

He took a small experimental bite and found it delicious. He hadn't eaten a meal without a plate in ages and ages—not since the last time he had been adventuring with his current mealtime companions, as a matter of fact. A lack of flatware definitely improved flavor, not to mention the effect the company was having. Usually he hardly noticed what he put in his mouth, his mind being almost always elsewhere during a meal, on ameliorating the million little disasters he dealt with each day to keep the Empire from collapsing. Eating and talking purely for the fun of it was a foreign concept to the Archadian nobility.

"This is the best meal I've had in weeks," Larsa announced. "I thank you both."

Penelo smiled. "It's peasant food, you know. No meat, and rough bread. I was afraid you'd hate it."

"Hardly. Archadian haute cuisine has the unfortunate tendency to look better than it tastes, and the capital has been in such an uproar of late I've barely been able to pick up a fork without a functionary rushing in to pull me away."

"So how did you get everyone to agree about the nethicite?" Vaan asked around mouthfuls. "I didn't think that was even _possible_."

"I did nothing," Larsa said, sitting up straighter, the picture of affronted innocence. "A young researcher of surpassing strong moral fiber leaked a selection of Draklor's classified files to the public. When it became known there was a cache of the same material that obliterated both Nabudis and the 8th fleet in the heart of a city of four million, there was rioting in the streets. I had no choice but to acquiesce to the will of the people and have it destroyed."

"You sneaky little weasel," Vaan laughed (for which Penelo kicked him in the ankle).

Larsa folded the soggy scraps of his meal into its wrapping and set it down next to him. "And there was more, that did _not_ find its way into the envelope delivered to the central press offices—that until now only myself, my Judges, and Queen Ashe knew—the samples of manufacted nethicite Dr. Cid created were molecularly unstable. They degrade with repeated use, to the point the crystalline matrix will collapse and violently release stored Mist at unpredictable intervals."

Penelo stopped chewing and abruptly swallowed. "Does that mean," she said very slowly, "what I think it means?"

Larsa nodded unhappily, his eyes fix on the cobblestones between his knees. "It would not have been another Nabudis, but it is only a question of scale. Had the fault gone undiscovered, someday, perhaps ten years from now, perhaps twenty, the laboratory and a five-block radius surrounding it would be a smoking crater. I hardly even need mention what would have occurred had the Imperial Navy gone forward with the plan to retrofit all cruisers with nethicite-enhanced drive systems. Or sold the technology to Dalmasca."

Vaan made a small choking noise of incomprehensible horror, and Penelo shivered beside him, despite the soaring temperature. "Why would Dr. Cid get that sloppy?" she asked. "He didn't seem the type to settle for anything less than perfection."

"I have doubts what he sought was even possible. Deifacted nethicite took centuries to recharge after use. Manufacted took a matter of weeks. Stability was sacrificed for power. I will not say I am not surprised at the turn my brother requested the research take."

"Nobody tried to reconstruct the experiments and correct the flaws? Didn't he have assistants?" she persisted, clearly hoping that he would say no.

Larsa shook his head. "He did, but his secretiveness was legendary, and his notes, as far as anyone can gather, were programmed to be wiped from the terminals upon his death. Whatever miracles he concocted were to be between himself and Venat alone."

"_Good," _she said with satisfaction, and took a ferocious bite of her sandwich.

"Well that was depressing. I'm sorry I asked," Vaan said, looking awkward. "Um. You know what would make this conversation better? Cactus fruit ices. Cactus fruit ices make everything better."

Larsa thought this over for a moment. The sandwich had disappeared disappointingly quickly, and, to his great surprise, he realized he was still hungry when it was gone. His taste for the cloying, buttery confections of Archadia was practically nonexistent, but the Rabanstran specialty of cactus pear sorbet was sounding excellent right about now, and the street was so thick with carts full of the stuff you could barely go three blocks without running into one. "You are a man of vision, Vaan."


	4. Chapter 4

Penelo was the slowest and lightest eater of the three of them, and gave the last quarter of her lunch to Vaan, who inhaled it as they went in search of a sweets vendor. It didn't take long. "How much are they?" Larsa asked Penelo, out of the cartminder's earshot.

"Two gil for small ones, three for the large. Why?" she asked.

"May I do the purchasing? I have a…theory I wish to test," he said.

"Oookay…just don't get too conspicuous. There aren't many Archadian noblemen out slumming it at this hour, and they're not usually after fruit ices" she said, and fished out a ten-gil note from a hidden pocket in her loose pants.

Larsa took it and ambled up to the stall. He didn't usually amble. It felt distinctly odd. "Three ices, please," he said in an almost flawless Lowtown accent.

"Comin' up," said the woman, who looked to be in her early thirties and had a baby fast asleep in a sling wrapped around her chest. She squinted at him. "Has anyone ever told you you look like the Little Emperor?" she observed, while she packed their desserts into three wax paper cones with well-practiced motions. "Not that I've ever seen him in person, you understand, only in the papers."

Larsa didn't flinch. "Da was Archadian," he said, with the air of someone who has explained this at least fifty times. "And lady, if I had five gil every time someone did, I could afford to buy up your whole cart and then some."

"Wouldn't that be the day," she said wistfully, patting the baby's back absently.

He put the bill on the counter and scooped the cones from the stand where she'd placed them. "Thanks. Keep the change."

Vaan and Penelo relieved him of his cold and sticky handfuls, their lips pressed tight against the furious giggling that threatened to break through them. Vaan grabbed Penelo's wrist with his free hand and swung her around a statue, out of the vendor's sight, to collapse against the base laughing.

"Was it that bad?" Larsa asked in his natural voice, when he'd strode around to stand in front of them.

"No…Larsa...that was amazing. How did you _do_ that?" Vaan asked before digging into his cup with flat wooden spoon thrust into the middle.

"Simple observation," he said, licking sticky pink juice from his knuckles with obvious relish. "My first encounter with your friend Balthier quite handily convinced me of the import of modifying one's speech and mannerisms when attempting subterfuge of this nature. Hence, I am also forgoing napkins."

Penelo guiltily retracted her tongue from her own hand and retrieved a handkerchief on which to wipe it. "No, seriously," Vaan persisted. "You sounded you spent your entire life in Lowtown. Have you ever considered a career in the theater, just in case this empire ruling gig gets old?"

"Considered? I have one. I am at all times the principal player on the most closely watched stage there is. But speaking of Balthier, how is he faring?"

"Well enough," replied Penelo. "You know…he and Fran'll pop up for a few days and then disappear for months."

"I have tried and failed several times to discover his whereabouts. A man of his talents and knowledge of Archadia's underbelly is sorely lacking in my court. Or rather, it is _teeming_ with them, but I have not found one I trust enough not to plant a dagger in my back at his nearest convenience."

"You'll never find him, and even if by some fluke you did, he'd never agree to it," said Vaan "He really does like you—what you did on the _Bahamut_ impressed the hell out of him, even though he'd never say it straight out—but he likes the sky more."

"Even if I had Judge Gabranth drop all charges against him? Void all Imperial bounties? A pirate of morals is a rare and precious creature."

"Nope," said Vaan. "Queen Ashe offered him the same sort of deal when he popped up at her coronation, and he all but laughed in her face. And those two were...you know...close." He made a gesture with his hands Larsa had never seen before, a Dalmascan colloquialism whose lewd meaning was plain enough.

"Vaan!" Penelo scolded, aghast. "Don't be gross."

"I'm educating!" he asserted, and put an arm fraternally around Larsa's shoulders. "Larsa needs these important facts from somebody, and if you think the old prunes he hangs out with are going to teach him...okay, so Basch isn't an old prune, but can you imagine him explaining it? Cause I can't."

Larsa disengaged himself from Vaan's arm, which was unpleasantly warm and sticky. "That's really very kind of you, Vaan, but you arrived a little late to corrupt my innocence. The debaucheries that occur behind closed doors at court would probably make _you_ blush."

"Excellent. Details?"

Penelo rolled her eyes. "Don't give him any ideas. It's not like he's got somebody to try them out on."

"I see. Pity for you," he said, teasing, but his heart skipped. He didn't _think_ Vaan had been bedding her, but they had been living together, and were so close it was impossible to separate the gesture of a lover from that of a friend who had been at your side since almost before you could speak. Nor had she seen fit to give him any hints about the arrangement in her letters. It probably hadn't occurred to her until she had seen him and found she could no longer look into his eyes without inclining her head—that he wasn't a _child_ anymore. Why had his mind even settled into this track? He was lucky to spend an afternoon with Penelo once a year, and once he reached his majority the demands on his time would be even worse, never mind the…

"Larsa? Hello?" said Vaan impatiently, prodding him lightly in the shoulder.

"Sorry?"

"I _said, _have those pretty palace ladies discovered you yet?"

"Yes," he groaned, and pushed around his rapidly melting dessert with the flimsy spoon. "Please don't remind me. They are gossipy, ambitious, cruel, fawning…insufferable, down to the last."

"But pretty?" Vaan prodded, with an exaggerated wink.

"Visions of ethereal beauty. I generally run when I see one coming."

"So if you could choose anyone, what kind of woman would she be?" Penelo asked quietly.

"I…ah…" he stammered, glancing over at her. Her eyes were incredibly blue, piercing blue, and their prickling over his skin drained the eloquence out of him. He knew exactly what kind of woman he wanted—someone with courage enough to speak the truth to the Emperor of Archadia, whether he wanted to hear it or not. Exactly as she had done the day they first met, when she had seen the rabid beast poised to strike that hid behind his brother's regal face.

A peel of thunder rolling over their heads spared him from having to answer her. A garden of umbrellas began to sprout up around them, and the food vendors packed up their wares and wheeled their carts away to shelter with brisk efficiency. A fat drop hit him square on the nose, then in what remained of Penelo's ice with a little 'plish', and then very shortly everywhere. Vaan made a dash for the nearest awning, with the other two on his heels. Within a few breaths the drops had become solid sheets of water.

"Dare I ask when this torrential downpour will cease?" Larsa asked doubtfully.

"Sometime tonight, but don't worry about it. We're going on a field trip. Aerodrome this way, " Vaan said, indicting a door farther down the line of shops. "More than that you're not getting until we land."

"Vaan…"

"Mystery is annoying, isn't it?"

"I deserve every minute of this, don't I."

"Yup."

"Let's _go,_ you two!" said Penelo. "We'll get soaked standing here, and that's only fun if you aren't going to be sitting in an airship cockpit for half an hour."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4

The _Harsh Dawn_ was a small craft with the bubble cockpit common to the older Dalmascan civilian ships—not as quick or nimble as the _Strahl_, but much less conspicuous and mechanically temperamental. Their choice in vessels suited Vaan and Penelo. It _looked_ harmless enough, but Larsa had no doubt the elder pair of sky pirates had assisted with some very lethal modifications to the solid little cargo ship.

Vaan caught sight of a knot of mechanics hovering near a Bhujerban ore transport, let out a strangled squeak completely unbefitting of the dangerous sky pirate he was, and grabbed Penelo by the wrist as he doubled his pace toward their ship. One of the moogles, a female in gray overalls with a truly enormous pom-pom, peeled off from the group with the obvious intention of having a few words with him. She did not look pleased. Penelo wrenched her wrist free from Vaan's light grip and planted her feet on the ground next to the _Harsh Dawn_'s wing, leaving Vaan to his furry fate despite the pleading look he gave her. Larsa jogged to catch up with her as inconspicuously as possible. Getting involved in anything messy would, thanks to his presence, get exponentially messier. He thought inconsequential thoughts and tried not to meet anyone's eyes.

It was hard to take an angry moogle seriously, since even when fullgrown their voices were shrill as a Hume child's, but this one sounded furious. It was the sort of delay he wanted to avoid at all costs, and it was escalating. Mechanics and pilots put down their tools and stared at them, pointing and smirking."People are beginning to notice us," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "Extricate him for the sake of my anonymity, if naught else?" She looked over at him, let out a long-suffering sigh, and waded into the argument, which involved terms like 'bill', 'late', and 'collection agency'. In calm and measured tones she apologized to the moogle, and the volume of her indignant squeaking was quickly subdued. She pulled a folded square of paper from one of her many pockets and handed it to Penelo, who skimmed and then signed it twice, glaring bullets at Vaan with her amber eyes all the while. He had the grace to look contrite, at least, and under his deep tan his face had gone quite pink. The moogle thanked her curtly, then made a very subtle but still very obscene gesture in Vaan's direction before fluttering back to her previous conversation. As soon as her back was turned, Vaan bounded up the ganplank, slapped his hand against the palm-lock, and ducked inside before the hatchway door had clicked into place within the walls.

"What was that, Vaan?" Larsa asked him, following behind at a more sedate pace.

"That was a generous helping of _stupid,_" Penelo said crossly, and not to him. "I'm not getting the _Harsh Dawn_ impounded over unpaid maintenance fees. Do you know what would happen if the City Watch started sniffing around? You unloaded that Rafflesia resin at a good price, I'll give you that, but our hold still stinks of it, and if they could pin anything down on us we wouldn't be able to set foot in Rabanstre for months."

"I meant to pay her! I was just waiting until—"

"Until what? You spent the last of your share from that job on Rozarrian tokay, and you didn't even like it! You have the worst hand with money I have ever _seen_!"

Larsa winced at the heat in normally sweet voice while Vaan tried feebly to defend himself. He had never been in this position before, and did not at all like it. He was an emperor, and before that the son of one, and disputes in his presence were always either with him (rare, he disliked confrontation and was skillful enough to avoid it) or about him. He weighed the relative merits of stepping into the conversation with a figuratively open purse, or keeping his mouth shut and letting Vaan take the reaming he deserved. Before he could come to a satisfactory conclusion, Penelo glanced at the pinched look on his face and cut the argument short herself. Her fists and jaw unclenched with obvious effort, and Larsa's diplomatic training kicked in automatically. He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder and said, in his most pleasant and conciliatory tone: "I've never been able to fly before. I don't suppose you could show me a few basics?"

She took a breath and slowly released it. "Um, sure. Taking off is a little tricky, but as soon as we have some altitude you can take her part of the way."

"And I've got some, uh, stuff to clear out of my bunk," Vaan muttered, sidling down the corridor. "I'm sure you'll do fine. Tell me all about it when we land."

It was hard to escape on a ship as small as the _Harsh Dawn_. 'Thank you' he mouthed at Larsa before disappearing around the bend. Penelo led him to the cockpit and gave him a sketchy outline of preflight procedure—told him which levers to flip and buttons to press. He didn't really care, but peace had been restored, and he was alone with Penelo. Alone. With Penelo.

The ship yawned like a puppy awakening from a good nap, shook itself awake, and bounded into the sky. The acceleration was immediate and fierce, nothing like the smoothness of a takeoff in his seat above the captain's chair on the bridge of the _Alexander_. But soon enough the invisible hand crushing him into the seat padding withdrew, and following Penelo's lead he unbuckled the chest restraints and leaned forward into the magically reinforced glass bubble that enclosed the cockpit. The view was magnificent. Long-dead rivers had carved the rock of the Estersand into steep ravines and fantastical towers banded in shades of rich umber. The thrum of their engine startled a flock of huge avions from their roost in one of the cliffs, and they took off squawking into the sunlight, feathers shimmering.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Penelo said hesitantly. "It's just that sometimes Vaan is so…_Vaan_."

The scenery was beautiful, but there were now more pressing issues to attend to, and he lifted his gaze away from the plateau to her apologetic face. "You needn't apologize to me. The transgression was not yours."

"It's habit," she said, picking at the tape that was wrapped around the grip of the flight rig. "I've always cleaned up after him. When it was his muddy clothes and his broken toys I could handle it, but…now the stakes are a lot higher than a spanking from his da."

"If were a question of influence, Queen Ashe or I would not hesitate to—"

"I know, and I don't want to see either of you in that position, ever. First because it means we're too sloppy to be in the business, and second because what it would cost you. A ruler putting themself above the law for personal reasons is a step onto a very dangerous path."

"So it is. You continue to surprise me, Penelo. When we first met I wouldn't have counted you for a philosopher," he said, and paused. "Nor a pirate."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, looking vaguely insulted.

Larsa shook his head. "You fight very well, and I do not aim to malign your skill with a blade or pistol. Forgive me if I speak beyond my ken, but…you seem most yourself when you are mending hurts, not causing them. Even as ill-trained as you were, your white magicks saved us all many times over when we journeyed together."

She laughed nervously. "I'm nothing special, Larsa. Really."

"Perhaps you do not have a balanced scale on which to measure your talents?" he chided gently. "Any healing master in Archades would be foaming at the mouth to take you as an apprentice."

"Now you're just flattering me," she said, eying him with a touch of mistrust.

"Is it still flattery if it's true? You know I've never gone in for that brand of courtly nonsense."

"What are you suggesting, Larsa? I can't leave Vaan and Dalmasca. Not after how hard I fought for them."

"I would not ask it of you. All I wish you to do for me is hold yourself and your magery in as high esteem as you ought. And, strange as it may be to say, Vaan is a man grown now. He must accept the rewards and consequences of his actions with his own two hands."

"You didn't come up here for a flying lesson, did you?"

He shrugged his shoulders faintly and tucked an errant lock of hair behind his ear. "I wanted to speak with you alone. The opportunity presented itself."

"My…my place is here," she said, but the beat of hesitation was enough to let him know she did not quite believe it. "My blood's as common as dirt, but my family is old, and we've lived in Rabanstre a long time, maybe ever since the foundation of the first walls were laid. I couldn't leave."

"If that is what you wish, that is what shall be," he said, with some finality, and did not speak again, but contented himself with gazing out at the tableau of sculpted stone that flew by beneath them. Penelo sat chewing her lip, lost in thought. It was true he wrote her rarely and saw her less, but even after three years the gutter orphan he had swept chivalrously into the palace in Bhujerba continued to flit gracefully across his thoughts. 'I will see that you are kept from harm,' he pledged her. A somewhat childish promise, perhaps, and so far it had been as often _she_ protecting _him_ as the reverse, but an oath was an oath.

The life of an outlaw was not for her. Tales aside, few took to it out of choice, and those that did thrived on the wild dance upon the knife blade's edge, in a way she did not. And most fell bloodied and blank-eyed before the first gray reached their temples. She was not his subject and he could not order her leave that life behind, nor did he wish to, but he could counsel. He could suggest. Her place was not by Vaan's side, not anymore. The episode in the hangar confirmed it. They had grown up, but also _apart_. He could only hope she realized this before it was too late to pull herself back from the brink.

That had been sitting in silence for some time when a metallic clanking announced Vaan had decided it was time to poke his head out of the burrow and take a cautious sniff of the air. "Uh, hey Penelo," he said carefully from the doorway. "I, um, wanted to say I'm sorry. I'll pay you back. Swear."

"It's okay," she said, plainly distracted.

"It…is?" he said to himself, boggled, but Vaan was not one to spit on unexpected gifts, and quickly changed the subject. He walked up to lean against the headrests of the two seats, a hand on each, since the cockpit had no passenger space. "ETA is five minutes, so I'll let you in on the plan, oh grand and mysterious Emperor."

Larsa arched his head back, over the edge of the copilot's seat, which gave him a rather amusing view up Vaan's nose. "We are, as you would say, in the ass-end of nowhere. Impress me."

"It juuuuuuuuuuust so happens I got my hands on three sandsailing boards this morning before we swung by the palace."

"Fast, dangerous, and the choice sport of every foolhardy youth this side of the Phon Coast. I like it. But the Ogir-Tan Yensa come here, if I am not mistaken. Would they not objectStrenuously? With spears?_" _Larsa asked. "That is a bit more peril for the sake of fun than I would care to indulge in."

"Nah," Vaan said, waving his concern aside with a flip of his hand, like a wisp of cobweb. "The inlet we're making for spooks 'em bad, and they steer clear. Clan Centurio killed something seriously nasty here way back when; what it was I couldn't tell you, because Montblanc and Kjrn wouldn't say. I don't think it went much better for the Hunters than for their Mark."

"Very well, I'm in."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5

Vaan shooed Larsa away when he tried to assist with wrestling the boards and sails down the cargo ramp, so he turned instead to examine one of the oddest quirks of geography in Ivalice. It was, indeed, a sea, the waves of sand sparkling in the sun beyond the shadow of the mesa. He stepped out of his shoes and waded in. It felt thicker than water, almost like wading through warm and somehow dusty honey. Penelo's footsteps whispered in the sand behind him, and she came to stand quietly at the 'shore', three canteens and three pairs of tinted goggles slung over her shoulder. She handed him one of each. "It's cold!" he said quizzically, holding up the canteen by the loop of rope that attached the cap to the body. "Almost _freezing."_

"There's a mesh compartment with an Ice Stone inside," she said, as she secured it to the embroidered belt around her waist. "Keeps the water cold almost forever. Which you should drink even if you're not thirsty, by the way."

"I shall," he said, turning back to the sea. The gentle motion of the waves was almost hypnotic, drawing his mind away into the silence and heavy heat.

"I mean it, Larsa," Penelo cautioned him. "And if you start feeling dizzy or sick to your stomach, we pack up and head back to Rabanastre. You don't have to tell _me _you're tougher than you look, but your body isn't used to this climate, and I really, really don't want to have to explain to Basch why the Emperor is passed out in my cabin with heatstroke."

The slight tilt to her head and arch of her brow brooked no argument. "That would be an unpleasant end to the day, and not one I intend to make," he assured her. Privately, he thought of that look as her 'Doctor Penelo face'. It was the only time she would forget the gulf of station between herself and the knights, lords, and queen whose acquaintance she had made and order them about. They were almost always good orders, the fact that they were coming from a gutter orphan nonwithstanding, and not to be disobeyed. Ashe had tried once, in Golmore, after being bitten by a monstrous serpent that had reared up out of nowhere. It was old, huge, and had a peculiar fast-acting venom that turned her shoulder and arm a sickening purple within an hour. She insisted she was fit to travel as soon as Penelo had gotten an antidote inside her (pale, trembling in pain, and obviously _not)_, so the girl sat down in the mud in the middle of the forest track and refused to move until Basch had pitched the tent and she'd laid down in it. At the time the situation had been so grave, and Ashe so obviously ill, that it hadn't been the least funny, but with three years to soften the memory the absurdity of the scene made him smile a bit.

"ALL SET!" Vaan called from the direction of the three newly assembled sandsailing boards. "LESSONS WILL BEGIN AS SOON AS MY STUDENT GETS HIS BUTT OVER HERE!"

It was impossible to stay in a contemplative mood when Vaan was around. Larsa and Penelo exchanged smiles, and he went to submit himself to the tender mercies of his instructor.

-----

Vaan wasn't half bad as a teacher, and Larsa was as quick a study as could be found. The first hour involved a lot of sweating, falling, and cursing in as many languages as Larsa knew (encouraged by Vaan, who expanded his vocabulary of obscenities threefold), not to mention getting absolutely as filthy as he'd ever been in his entire life. The second hour had less falling off and was mostly almost ramming into Vaan, Penelo, or the cliff wall. By the third he was merrily racing the two Dalmascans up and down the rock wall; he lost every time, but was racing nonetheless.

"No Aero spells, Penelo! That's cheating!" yelled Vaan as her sail whipped by his head. She turned back and stuck her tongue out at him, leaning into the bend ahead just in time to avoid a messy collision. Vaan tried mustering a spell of his own but bungled it (he'd never been much good at splitting his attention), and she was still in the lead when they reached the rocky beach. When she hit the solid ground near where they'd set the shipdown, she set the board aside, pulled the goggles off, and splayed herself out in the sand, panting. Vaan and then Larsa, a distant third, followed her lead.

"You ready to finish up here? Larsa's turning into a blonde," Vaan remarked.

"I'm turning into a what?" Larsa said skeptically, brushing at his hair and loosing a small dust cloud. He sneezed. "Right. That's disgusting."

Penelo levered herself up on her elbows and sniffed. "We could all use a wash, and maybe—Larsa, your _face_!"

"Oh, now what?" he sighed.

Penelo slapped her palm to her forehead and groaned at her lack of foresight. "We forgot hats. You got crisped."

Larsa glanced down at his bare arms, which had gone from fashionably pale to brilliant red since the last time he'd taken notice of them. "That really stings," he said, sitting up and gingerly prodding the burn on his cheek with one finger.

"Hold still. I think a tiny spell is in order here, otherwise everyone will know you've been playing hookey."

"Playing what?"

"Just hold still." She slid over on her knees to where he sat and closed her eyes, setting the form of the glyph in her mind with enviable speed. He felt the air charge with power, just a faint tingle, and she released it gracefully into the Healing form, expending no more or less energy than was necessary. She really did have the touch of a Master. It was plain even when working on something as inconsequential as a sunburn. Perhaps she had never felt a trained white mage's attentions before, growing up as poor as she had. Scraping together the coin to buy the spell itself was hard enough, and the talent to use it properly was rarer still. He, of course, had been attended by several: one during the brutal winter six years ago that had turned a bad cold into pneumonia, and again when he'd been bucked on a hunting trip and he hit his head on a stone. Fran was the only one who had tended to her injuries with spellcraft, and while he had the greatest respect for the laconic Viera, her hands and spells were not gentle.

"Better now?" she asked, opening her eyes.

"Much," he said gratefully. "May I ask what the bathing accommodations are?

"We can head back to the Nebra," Vaan put in.

Larsa swallowed against the dust in his throat and pinched his brows together delicately. "I admit to some hesitancy about bathing in your river."

"Which is Archadian courtspeak for: 'I'm totally grossed out because Lowtown smells kind of like shit'. Stop being so polite. It's annoying," Vaan declared with a wink, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.

"The tributaries upstream of Rabanastre are pretty clean—that's where we'd be going," Penelo assured him. "Because…blech. Let's break these down and pack up. I feel _gross._"


	7. Chapter 7

Ahahahah…oh god I suck at being timely. Also UNDERAGE DRINKING LOL.

* * *

Vaan set them down on a picturesque strand—empty—for it could only be reached by airship, and even then not easily. The Harsh Dawn barely fit; landing had been rather tricky, and the whole vessel was tilted into the wet sand that sucked at the left landing struts. The precarious position at least insured their privacy. The desire to wash was becoming an almost physical craving. Larsa had sand in his…in his _everywhere_, not to put to fine a point upon it, and he was by nature a very fastidious young man.

He was first out, and hastily peeled off the borrowed shirt (literally, it was that filthy) and gave it a halfhearted shaking-out at the riverbank. The motion sent him into a sneezing fit again. Vaan hadn't bothered, but only removed any items of his wardrobe likely to rust and dove in still clothed. Penelo, who turned out to be most prepared, was in her cabin changing into a bathing suit. Larsa turned back to the ship when he heard her yelp as she sprinted down the hot metal stairs, and at that moment had his first encounter with Dalmascan swimwear. The scraps of fabric that made up her suit were less than a quarter of what well-bred Archadian ladies wore to the seaside, and the top half did miraculous things to her svelte dancer's bustline. Then she passed him on the way to the water—and he saw that the triangle of fabric over her tailbone didn't cover any of her toned, shapely…

"Penelo, you're not _decent_!" he choked, immediately flicking his eyes down to the sand pooling around her heels.

"What?" she said, stopping just short of the darker band of wet sand that marked the riverbank.

"I cannot help but notice you are wearing scarcely enough to constitute a pair of pocket handkerchiefs," he said, addressing the back of her knees out a deeply ingrained sense of propriety that eked out a win over the teenage boy's desire to ogle her backside.

"Of course not. Don't you know what happens when you get leather wet?" she answered, as if prancing around nearly naked in the company of the opposite sex was a common occurrence. Then again, Dalmasca was very hot. Perhaps it really _was—_andher modesty as he was changing at her flat was for an entirely different reason. He decided now would be a good time to toss his shirt on a nearby boulder and wade in. Past his waist. As quickly as possible.

The chill made him gasp, and at the moment was exactly what he needed. He took a breath and dropped all the way below the surface of the murky water. When he rose again, his wet hair left little rivulets of brown water running down his chest. He wrinkled his nose. There wasn't any soap, but he did what he could about the worst of it, scrubbing at his shoulder-length hair as vigorously as he could stand. Vaan had given up on the pretense of washing and was merrily tormenting Penelo, who seemed to be giving as good as she got, judging from the sputtering and cursing that issued from his direction. Larsa pointedly distanced himself from their horseplay with a few strong kicks, but as soon as Penelo's back was turned he swept a huge wave in her direction using the rare and ancient technick of pushing the force of a blow beyond one's physical reach. His old swordmaster would've had an apoplectic fit over the frivolous use to which Larsa was putting his teachings, but he was a continent away and none the wiser. Penelo whipped around, wiping the water from her eyes in shock, and promptly decided he was now fair game.

She finally called a truce after a particularly spectacular coughing fit on Vaan's part. Larsa's nose and throat were sore enough from the repeated dunking that he was more than ready to adhere to her terms, which involved accompanying Vaan to fetch cold drinks and towels from the ship. They returned with their burdens and laid them down on the sand. Vaan rooted around in the tiny portable icebox and withdrew two amber bottles of unmistakable shape, plus one squat clear one that was filled with something shockingly orange. Larsa gave him a doubtful look. "Nuh-uh. You're too young to be drinking," Vaan said.

"Vaan, please. I rule an _empire_. I believe I can manage not to get roaring drunk on one bottle of lager."

"Kidding. Here," he said, grinning, and retrieved a third amber bottle from under the ice.

Vaan popped the cap off with his teeth, making Penelo wince, and took a swig. "You people do better wine, but we do better beer."

"Let me try it and I may agree," Larsa said, tapping the bottlecap.

Penelo shook her head and added a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. "It's a pirate thing. Give it here." He did. She got up and inserted the bottle into a conveniently shaped section of the landing gear, popped the cap off, and returned it to him before doing her own. "Me, like any other normal person, prefers not to risk chipping a tooth for the sake of machismo."

Vaan waved her concern aside. It was an old game. Neither of them ever won.

Larsa swallowed a mouthful of his beer and decided after some brief consideration he preferred wine, but the brew was quite palatable and he didn't care to break the comfortable silence with a complaint.

"Do you ever wish you could just run away from it all?" Vaan said finally.

"Sometimes," he replied. "I envy you the freedom to come and go as you please, beholden to no one. But without a Solidor on the throne, the former senators and their sons would shred each other like dogs in the betting pits, and Archadia in the process."

"Makes you wonder why they want the job so bad," Vaan observed, in a rare moment of sagacity.

"Indeed. I was the only one of my father's children who never cared for power…and now I have more than any man ought to hold."

"Larsa…" Penelo whispered.

"But I _will_ do my duty, for the people of Archadia—and Dalmasca," he reassured her (and to some degree, himself).

The concern that creased her forehead eased, but not entirely. "Sun's going down," Penelo said wistfully.

"Yeah," Vaan agreed. "Guess it's time to go."

-----

Kytes was inconspicuously awaiting them at the Harsh Dawn's berth with Larsa's imperial finery wrapped a plain paper package. "It's all there, I swear," he said, presenting it to its rightful owner and melting again into the background so they could say their goodbyes.

Larsa tucked it under his arm. "Well." he said hesitantly, hoping to tease out his last few minutes of freedom. Penelo took that as her cue to hug him tight, something more than a friendly goodbye and tinged faintly with desperation. "Take care of yourself, okay?" she whispered into his hair, just before she pulled away. His lips barely brushed her temple, wishing he could have given her more.

Vaan scuffed his heels and 'ahemed' uncomfortably until Penelo said: "None of your Clan buddies are around to see. Just hug him, you ninny."

Vaan made a face at her, but did anyway. "Basch knows how to find us, if you ever run into the sort of trouble a pair of sky pirates might be able to get you out of."

"I know. Thank you."

"You should really be getting back," Penelo said. "They have to make at least a token effort at arresting us, and I'd rather not put Queen Ashelia in an awkward position."

"I plan to turn myself in at the Archadian consulate. They shall make of it what they will," he answered. "Til next we meet. There will be a next, won't there?"

Vaan and Penelo exchanged looks. "Oh, count on it," she said.


End file.
